Lost Mind

I used to be such a genius in high school. I never studied. Never. And I got really high grades. There was this magic I felt everytime I had a physics or math problem to solve, a math problem to unravel. I never understood what others found so difficult about math and physics. Everything looked so clear to me.

I used to look at the problems, copy the equation on my paper, and see the answers. Like they were there for me to pick out and write down.

I never even wanted to be an honor student. I never needed affirmation that I was smart. I just knew it. Confident ass, you say? I really was.

And I lost it. In the summer of my first year of college.

A lot would have to do with breaking up with Jo at that time and feeling so rotten that I couldn't even make myself go to class. Calculus was a whole new ballgame. I skipped classes for most of the semester and barely made all my exams (I think I missed 2 of the 6). This was so new...looking at the questionnaire and seeing nothing that made sense. I would completely blank out, and only make points by giving a joke for the bonus. And then I lost my confidence, and everything math went downhill from there.

So I flunked it, and took it again, and flunked it again, and took it again, ad nauseaum. By the time I had passed my math subjects I had racked up 100 units for what should have been a total of 10 units. By this time I had no traces of my former confidence in Math. I was a sweaty palmed, thumping-hearted, panting shadow of my old smarty-ass self.

So does this story have a happy ending? Did I bounce back as a confident, but more mature and pragmatic person?

Thankfully yes, but not before I groveled at the altar of physics.